Louis’ eyes almost closed until he heard it, the knock of bone on wood that brought him back to the present. No longer was he in the Bergleiz estate. It was no longer ‘Lord’ that those beneath him whimpered and muttered.

  It was Marshal.

  “Come in,” Louis muttered. “I knew I could never escape you.”

  The door flew open, a long red cape sweeping in before the man himself. Hughes Duvall entered with easy confidence, posture loose, as if he were stepping into his own chamber rather than the Marshal’s. He did not seem bothered by Louis’ unimpressed stare.

  Louis felt the familiar twist of irritation. He did not miss this. He did not miss him, nor the way the old man smiled as though Louis were still a boy in need of correction.

  “Boy, I’m back,” Hughes said lightly. “Did you miss me?” He threw both hands into his thinning hair in mock exasperation.

  “No,” Louis replied. “And don’t you ever call me boy again, Hughes.” The words left his mouth like venom, but Hughes only offered an exaggerated flinch.

  “There it is again—that face of hatred,” Hughes said, studying him. “The way you speak to me, one would think you’re the one in charge. Do you forget I’ve not yet gone to meet my creator?”

  Louis scowled, turning back to the window as he stroked his beard.

  “No, you haven’t,” he said flatly. “But I wouldn’t mind if you hurried it along.”

  Hughes smiled at that—but the warmth dropped from his face in an instant, his cadence sharpening.

  “Boy, look at me when I’m speaking to you.”

  Reluctantly, Louis turned. Their eyes met—Hughes’ cold, appraising, still carrying the weight of authority Louis despised.

  “Those eyes of yours,” Hughes said quietly. “As cold as the day you arrived outside the Temple, trailing servants and attendants behind you. I never would have thought you’d become the man you are today.”

  Silence stretched between them. Each time Louis’ gaze drifted, Hughes snapped his fingers, forcing it back.

  “None of us could have saved you,” Hughes murmured at last. “Could we?”

  Louis’ brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

  Hughes finally looked away, the edge in his expression dulling. “Nothing. Tell me—how fare the Order’s operations in the Holy Land? As my right hand, it is your duty to keep me informed of such matters.”

  Then his voice dropped, low and deliberate.

  “You are not Grandmaster yet, Louis. And if I have any say in it, you won’t be for a very long time.”

  Louis growled at the last words; they both knew it was only a matter of time. The old man had one foot in the grave, and once he died, there would be no one left to stop Louis from ascending.

  Becoming the Sixth Grandmaster of the Order of the Silver Sword.

  “State your business here, old man, if you’re here to lecture me, like how you and Godfrey did, then you’ll find yourself sorely disappointed—”

  “Do you think of your mother sometimes, boy?”

  Louis’ face crumpled into a wrathful look, then into a laugh. Quiet at first, yet it bellowed into something deeper.

  “That miserable woman? What is there be to think about? How she cried every night? How did she let herself be humiliated by that bastard?”

  Hughes cut in.

  “That miserable woman—” he began, “Was Lady Greifenau of Lisieux.”

  “It is a shame,” Hughes went on more softly. “The world lost a good woman. And her legacy…” His gaze hardened again. “A power-hungry, arrogant pup who cannot listen to his elders.”

  Grandmaster Hughes always did this—dragged the ghosts of House Bergleiz into the room with him. Few in the Order still remembered that name; fewer still cared. But Hughes never let Louis forget his mother, Sigune von Greifenau, how she had once been treasured before she was sent to Rouen to marry Victor, traded away like a piece on a board.

  “I heard some interesting rumours as I headed here, some about an execution, others about a rogue knight…”

  Hughes let the words sit, marinating on the walls of his chambers.

  “Most curiously, of how the one you executed claimed a sin most grievous, one that he alleged was done by your hand.”

  Louis twisted his hair; the hair itself seemed to have a memory of its own, and so did his hands. His hands seemed to default to the same spot.

  The place his mother used to braid.

  “I executed a knight,” Louis nodded, “A Captain, to be precise, Reynard Blackwood.”

  For the first time since landing in the Levant, the Grandmaster let out an audible gasp.

  “Reynard?” Hughes exclaimed, “As in, one of the students of Godfrey?”

  Hughes gritted his teeth, his cape seeming to rise with his anger.

  “Have you gone mad? He was a splendid knight, a capable warrior who had both the respect and admiration of his men…”

  His voice trailed off.

  “That’s more than you’ll ever have, at this rate.”

  Hughes closed his eyes, breathing in, then continuing, “I heard that you offered him salvation, at least, and that he rejected it.”

  Louis quipped back immediately, “He knew too much, he went looking where his nose didn’t belong, even if he accepted my offer, I would’ve had him killed in the dead of night, far away from Acre.”

  Hughes finally seated himself, settling comfortably on the edge of Louis’ bed as though it were his own. He reached for the wine, poured himself a glass, and drank. Louis shot him a sharp glance.

  “We are not in Normandy anymore, boy,” Hughes said. “You are not my feudal lord here.” He took another sip. “Even if you were, I would never pay taxes to a lord as pompous as you.”

  When he set the cup aside, the humour drained from his face. The easy laxness went with it.

  “This knight,” Hughes said quietly. “The one who went rogue. Do you know who they are? Why they turned?”

  He paused, letting the weight of it hang.

  “The Order carries secrets within it. Even a low-ranking member—even a mere recruit—falling into Saracen hands would be a stain upon Christendom.”

  Louis looked away. He reached for the knife at his bedside and rolled it between his fingers, the blade dancing through the narrow spaces between them.

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  “It was Reynard Blackwood’s deputy captain,” Louis said. “Aveline of Canterbury.”

  The knife kept moving. Hughes’ gaze drifted to the ceiling.

  “Aveline?” he echoed. “That squire—the only one you ever trained?”

  Louis nodded, ignoring the growing curiosity in Hughes’ voice.

  “Now that I think on it,” Hughes went on slowly, “that is the same name I heard whispered on my way here. The same name Captain Reynard accused you of committing a grievous sin against…”

  “Hughes,” Louis cut in, his voice hard. “Enough—”

  The Grandmaster pressed on. “Louis, if you did what I think you did…”

  A pause.

  “Then you are truly no better than your father.”

  “You could never understand!” Louis snarled.

  He hurled the knife at the wall. It struck stone a handspan from Hughes’ face, the impact ringing sharp in the chamber.

  Hughes did not flinch. He only smiled, thin and condescending.

  “I don’t intend to challenge your authority in the Order, boy, whilst in name, I am the Grandmaster, even if I were to stop you now, after my death…”

  “But even still,” Hughes pondered, “Why? That Aveline girl, why do you torment her so? I remember days at the Temple, her training regimes… You put her through training that fully-fledged knights would struggle with…”

  Louis paused once more.

  “You could never understand, Hughes.”

  Hughes raised his hands in defeat, “Yes, of course, the ever-arrogant Lord Bergleiz strikes again.”

  He changed his voice, mimicking that of a common peasant girl.

  “Please, m’lord Bergleiz! Please do not raise our taxes!”

  Louis cut him off, “Hughes, if you have no further requests, leave. I am preparing the knights to march with the great kings against the Sultan Saladin. We are headed to Jaffa.”

  “Regarding the vacant seat of Third Company Captain…” Hughes began, “May I suggest a knight already in that company? From what I heard, the company isn’t too fond of your leadership. Choose one of the veterans of the Third Company, a loyal one.”

  Hughes let that last word sit, “You know the new generation of knights better than I.”

  Hughes eyes trailed off as his lips pursed, “Yet what about the rogue knight? That Aveline girl, from memory, became Deputy Captain in only four years of service, she seems to be skilled in the way of warfare.”

  The Grandmaster poured himself another drink. “You can’t go easy on her and expect to capture her, I can tell; she’s dangerous.”

  Louis scoffed, “Her? The girl who cries at the death of those beneath her? The girl who wails at the mundanities of war, the girl who broke after being separated from a boy she knew for one year?”

  Louis shook his head, “I know her, Hughes, worry not, I will send a small hunting party, she’s predictable, and she’s not worth sending many men for, we need them for the assault on Jaffa…”

  He looked outside the window once more, rain still falling.

  “Finding her will be easy… there’s nothing easier than a foe that is known to you…”

  …

  “All hail, Malcolm Hastings!”

  The ceremony felt surreal; nothing felt tangible, like a hallucination. In such a short amount of time, Malcolm went from a simple mission in a coastal village, to—whatever this was. Bile rose in his throat as the thought formulated.

  Malcolm walked through the barracks of the Order, surrounded by cheers, mostly forced, he presumed, by the Third Company.

  As he walked through the makeshift aisle, he couldn’t help but notice the stares of his comrades, so melancholic and miserable. He couldn’t blame them, either.

  At the end of the aisle were two men, the first, he could make no mistake who the scum was. Louis just could not help but torment the Third Company more.

  The other, however, was a shock, the red cape and elderly appearance. Malcolm thought it might be a minister or maybe a missionary. Either way, Malcolm walked down to accept his new station.

  “Brother Malcolm.” The older man said, “Kneel.”

  He kneeled as the older man held a folded cape, deep blue.

  It was Reynard’s former cloak. His heart sank.

  “Where were you first prepared to lead the Order?” he began.

  “In my heart,” Malcolm replied, and low hums reverberated as he said this.

  “And where was this heart tested?”

  “In the field of battle. In the line of duty.”

  “Rise, by the grace of God, Malcolm Hastings… I, Hughes Duvall, Fifth Grandmaster of the Order, proclaim you as the Captain of the Third Company.”

  The man draped a deep blue cape, with the insignia of the Order and the First Grandmaster, Lady Seraphine, inscribed on it.

  “Rise, Captain Malcolm.”

  He obeyed, and he rose as he turned to face his men.

  His men.

  The weight of leadership already weighed heavy.

  Suddenly, Malcolm understood why Reynard was so interested in the drink.

  …

  Merely a few weeks ago, this was Reynard’s chambers.

  Now Malcolm stood inside them, the walls cold with absence. They seemed to stare back at him, as if they knew he did not belong.

  Captain Malcolm of the Third Company.

  The promotion had come on short notice, especially with the Order preparing to march with the other great kings to Jaffa. He had only taken a few items from his old quarters before moving into Reynard’s—no, the room of the Third Captain.

  The most important of which was his Shatranj set; some pieces had begun to wear, some from Malcolm’s constant use, for what else was there for a crippled man to do but play with pieces on a board.

  The Order had briefly searched the room, checking for any valuables Reynard may have had. They didn’t search for long, however. Reynard was not the time to leave much lying around, except alcohol and the occasional piece of food. There was nothing inconspicuous that they had to draw leads on.

  If only they knew what Malcolm knew.

  He sighed, then mustered the courage to rummage through Reynard’s chambers.

  Malcolm searched for what felt like hours, his efforts slowed by the lack of his left hand. Each time he fumbled, the same memory surfaced—Ava, bruised and bloodied in the groves near Fiana.

  Ava. Malcolm wanted to believe, so dearly, that she’d gotten Reynard killed, he wanted to pin the blame of his death on her shoulders, just as he tried to pin on her earlier, the blame of losing his arm.

  He wanted nothing more, than to believe it was her reckless altruism, it was all he wanted to think about right now, yet, try as he might, he knew that was delusion.

  He knew Louis had orchestrated a far deeper plot.

  At last, deep underneath his bed, he caught a dull sparkle. He blinked twice, half-expecting it to vanish.

  It did not. The gleam was faint but constant. He had found it.

  Silveredge.

  With a heave, he dragged the bundle from beneath the bed. It was wrapped tightly in dark cloth, dull and opaque, hiding whatever beauty lay beneath. Slowly, almost reverently, Malcolm unravelled it.

  A slender sword emerged, its lines clean and elegant. The guard bore fine silver inlay along each quillon, small crosses worked into the steel, and the pommel gleamed with a warm, gilded sheen. Even in the low light, the metal seemed to catch and hold the glow of the room.

  The blade itself was a work of quiet beauty. Even Malcolm, not one to marvel at such things, could not deny it.

  It felt almost weightless in his hands, perfectly balanced, a far cry from the brutal heft of his battle axe. He turned it slightly, watching the edge take the light. The tip was honed to a needle point; even at a glance, Malcolm knew it would part mail and flesh alike, keener than any blade he had seen in the Holy Land.

  Why had no one used this weapon yet? Why did Reynard hide it away?

  Why should Malcolm give such a treasure to Ava?

  After his promotion to Captain, Malcolm immediately requested of Louis that he should be the one to track her down, that he was the only one whom Ava might listen to. That he was the only one who could bring her back alive and ready to stand trial.

  A knock came from his door. He hastily wrapped Silveredge, as hastily as one with a singular hand could. And placed one of his Shatranj pieces into his pocket.

  “Come in,” he said.

  The door flew open, and long, brunette hair followed. Malcolm relaxed as he walked through, just the person he wanted to see.

  “Malcolm—” Lucian, one of the most skilled swordsmen in the Third Company, began in earnest, then corrected himself, “Urm!”

  He bowed. Malcolm hurried to stop him, but he continued.

  “Captain Malcolm, sir!”

  Malcolm let out an audible sigh, “Lucian, just because I now don the red cape at roundtable meetings does not make me any different than before, just refer to me as Malcolm.”

  The young man, his hair flowing long, nodded.

  “Yes, Captain—I mean yes, Brother Malcolm.”

  Malcolm shuffled in his pockets, looking for the Shatranj piece he had placed in there earlier, and began to play with it in his right hand.

  “Lucian, you, me and Brother Daniel, us three, along with Little Miss-I mean Deputy—I mean Former Deputy Ava, us four are the current veterans of the Third Company…”

  He nodded, “Yes, sir, Deputy—Urm, I mean Former Deputy Ava was the one who put the finishing touches on a lot of our swordsmanship.”

  Malcolm’s brow furrowed. When he next saw Ava, he didn’t know what he was going to do to her. How could she be so reckless? She had abandoned all of them, for what purpose? To save some Saracen children?

  Malcolm stared at the Shatranj piece; the King lay there, the most important piece on the board.

  “Lucian, I need a right-hand man, someone I can rely on, a man of character and discipline, for the burden of leadership is not one I am made for.”

  Malcolm then pulled out two more pieces, the Queen and the Rook.

  “I need a right-hand man, if I’m going to lead this company… Lucian, I hereby instate you as my Deputy Captain.”

  The knight’s eyes widened before he took a deep breath. Malcolm handed him the Rook.

  “Yes! Captain Malcolm!”

  Malcolm smiled, “Good, gather any men you feel up to the task, tell them to meet me at the gates of Tyre at dawn.”

  He placed his hand on his shoulder, his left arm hanging to the side.

  “Manage things here whilst I’m gone, I won’t be long.”

  Lucian trembled, his teeth chattering.

  “That’s—that’s what Captain Reynard would’ve said too, and now look at him.”

  Lucian turned and walked out, his hair trailing behind as he shut the door, and when Malcolm was sure that he had gone, he unraveled Silveredge once more.

  What do I do?

  His thoughts ran back and forth, his mind racing, with Captain Reynard’s cheery attitude and love for drinking being one thought. The other, Ava’s holier-than-thou presence.

  Captain, she did this to you… And you’d still have me help her, why?